The issue was that the Huan Clan has figured out that he's doing ranking matches and has been sending their members after him constantly. Since he was below the 1000th rank, he wasn't able to refuse any challenges made to him unless he wanted to be expelled from the sect on the account of being 'too weak to survive'. So whenever one ranking match was done, he was immediately challenged by another Huan clan member. It was like the Huan clan within the sect had no shortage of 3rd stage Qi Gatherers and 4th stage Qi Gatherers to send at him.
He swore after he was done with one, they'd eat a recovery pill and qi pill before challenging him again! Bing refuses to let this go on any longer. They'd definitely sap him of all his remaining stamina and kill him like a pathetic dog soon. Either he would have to start killing them or figure out a less violent way of dealing with this issue.
"Oi! Getting tired fatty?! We can do this all day till your begging on your knees for forgiveness." His female opponent taunted.
"Yes, I'm very tired. You wouldn't mind me taking a little rest, do you?" Bing plopped to the ground as sweat poured down his body.
She glared at him but he was completely serious. This was his 5th fight in a row today and he was no closer to the second leaderboard than he was when he first started. He just wanted a break from all the fighting and just eat some food. Bing knew how important it was to gain as much strength as you could as a cultivator because he came from a family of cultivators. Not a good one but one nonetheless. This training idea was a great idea and all but even with training it has its limits. Some rest is needed, no matter how crazy the training is.
Oh, it seems his opponent had enough of him taking a rest in the middle of their fight. She was building up a scary amount of qi in that sword of hers. Bing still wanted catch his breathe a bit more though.
"Please take a couple more minutes charging up that move of yours. I still need some more time." He said politely.
"I'M GOING TO RIP RIGHT THROUGH YOUR GUTS FAT a.s.s!"
"Ah, please spare my poor ears miss. Your clan is already working me like a slave. I don't deserve to have my ears bleed as well, do I?"
This only made her scream obscenities at him even louder. If he tried to cover his ears, he wouldn't be able to block this lightning sword slash of hers. He had to be the most unfortunate guy inside the Golden Serpent Sect. All he wanted to do was get a little strong, meet a nice girl with a good body, and live the rest of his life with her.
That dream was effectively shattered once his life was saved by the Empress. Just like the hopes of this girl wanting to pierce straight through his shield. He stood up before her lightning-clad blade reached him and blocked the attack head on with flesh toughened by his auxiliary martial art. The attack had quite some power in it because he was pushed all the way to the edge of the ring after being hit by it. Even the middle of his shield was darkened from the strike of that technique.
"That was a great move of yours. I hope you don't mind if I take a little break after something that powerful. If it was anyone other than me, I'm sure they would've died horribly." Bing sat his round b.u.t.t back on the ground.
He scooted a bit closer towards the middle of the ring so that if anything unexpected happened he wouldn't fall over the edge and lose. Bing planned to use this chance while she was out of energy and couldn't attack to recover his stamina. One of his shield art techniques was based around this strategy in a way. It was called Art of Blocking. This was the first lesson of his shield art and it was focused on having the shield wielder practice on nullifying the most damage from their opponents and wasting their enemy's energy by forcing them to use high-energy moves.
It was surprisingly hard. You think it'd be easy to just block and guess that your opponent will go all out to kill you but the instructions were more in depth than Bing would ever guess. There were strategies like forcing your opponent to chase you around, tricking them into thinking their attacks are effective when you're really just moving along with their hits and not actually taking the full brunt of their hits, and even taunting them until their red in the face and wanting nothing more than to shut you up and kill you.
Building stamina was a must for shield-wielders. Bing is just now seeing why that is so important first-hand. His opponent wanted nothing more than to slice him up into pieces with that cute glare in her eyes but after using that big lightning move from earlier, she could barely move. She was on all fours breathing heavily. He guessed she didn't expect that he could take a deadly technique like that head on.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?"
"GET UP AND KILL HIM ALREADY!"
"YOU'RE EMBARRa.s.sING OUR CLAN OUT HERE!" The other Huan clan members yelled.
Their 'cheers' managed to give the girl some more fight in her. Bing still wanted some time to rest so he picked up a piece of the stage that broke from him blocking her lightning strike and threw it at her waist. It landed dead on and she dropped back to the stage with a painful groan.
"YOU CHEAP a.s.sHOLE!"
"SHE'S JUST A GIRL!"
"DON'T YOU HAVE ANY PRIDE AS A MAN?!"
Bing dug out any earwax in his ears while whistling. He definitely did not hear any criticism towards himself during a ranking match where one's life is at stake. Plus, it was those sc.u.mbags speaking anyway. Any judgement from them was mute based on the fact that they're trying to kill him for defending himself.
She was still squirming a bit on the ground which made Bing happy. The referee can't call the match unless one of the fighters was completely incapacitated, they surrendered, or they died. She still had some fight in her and didn't want to give up yet. Bing would've declared his love for her at this moment if he didn't feel that she would probably faint out of shock once he said it. He has to manage his stamina well right now.
"Just give up and let us kill him instead!"
"Worthless..."
"You still have a chance. Don't give up yet." Bing told her.
She vomited blood and dropped face first into it. Ah h.e.l.l, it wasn't a declaration of love that did it but friendly advice? What has the world come to where a man can't give friendly advice without someone dropping over dead? Here comes the 6th fight of the day...
"I won't embarra.s.s myself like this fool." He kicked the girl out of the ring and looked towards the referee.
"You don't think it's embarra.s.sing how your clan is sending so many people after me without letting me catch a single break? I'm only a 3rd stage Qi Gatherer you know. My talent is average. I have no connections in the sect. It's not a worthy investment at all for your clan even if you kill me." Bing tried to reason.
"I don't know why we're after you either but it doesn't really matter all that much. You got on the bad side of our clan and that's good enough reason for me to kill you." He slammed his fists together and rushed towards Bing.
"Don't be too strong, alright? I'm only good at fighting weaklings. I'm the normal one in my group after all..."
"DROP DEAD!" His fist radiated with a frosty aura.
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"That was a great technique young man!" Lei Zhi complimented.
"SHUT YOUR FACE!" He responded.
It seems when fighting young people, they don't seem to like it when they are complimented after not succeeding. They tend to think that you are looking down on them and mocking their efforts. That's another one to remember for the future. The youthful disciple turned around and slashed his sword at Lei Zhi with a lot of waste in his movements. Even though he was blind, he could see the attacks very clearly. Too clearly, he's already seen his opponent's next 3 moves with his 'eyes.'
Lei Zhi was not a fool though. He knew this advantage isn't useful against those much stronger than him. His old body wouldn't be able to keep up even if his eyes could. That's why he was planning to get a good body martial art and a decent cultivation technique before or during the Treasured Plains. Right now, he could handle it with his movement martial art but if he ever ran into someone vastly stronger than himself, he could only pray and run away. Or he could rely on Xiurong, which is what he's most likely going to do. She's pretty strong and pregnant apparently! It must have been before he fished her out of the dimensional slit.
Lei Zhi calmly slipped pa.s.sed the angry youth once again and fished up a part of the ring with his fishing hook. He slung the rod forward and sent the stone hurling towards the young man. The stone blocked his opponent's vision and was the only thing he could see. The energetic youth's strength wasn't bad though. He slashed right through the stone material and tried to dash right for Lei Zhi. Unfortunately for him, Lei Zhi didn't only throw one piece of the stage. The hidden rock lodged itself into the gut of the young disciple and knocked him out of the ring, giving Lei Zhi the win.
Lei Zhi wanted to give the boy some comforting words but the last few days have taught him that that would only backfire and cause the boy to be even more furious with him. The youth today are different from the youth in his days. Positivity and kindness just seem absent and are actively looked down upon. He will have to try and change that in the future...
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Ying was inside the Martial Pavillion looking for a strong suitable auxiliary martial art that could complement her other fire-based martial arts. She only had enough points to take an Earth-ranked one but all the Earth-ranked support manuals were either incomplete and dangerous or didn't fit well with her fire qi. She still decided to take a look at the incomplete ones though. Maybe if she was lucky, she could awaken a bloodline and suddenly be able to read the unreadable text.
The support manual she picked up was called Overbearing Amalgamation of Flames. Quite the powerful name for something only in the Earth-ranked section of the library. The beginning pages of this manual were pretty exciting. Based on what it told her, this support technique had the possibility of matching sky-ranked support techniques and even heaven-ranked ones if she could gather enough Mystic Flames to combine.
There were numerous mystic flames around the world and very rarely could you see someone able to use these flames. This was because each mystic flame had their own will. If you could not resonate with that flame or dominate it with a superior will, you would be consumed by the flame itself. It was one of Ying's goals to take a mystic flame for herself but if she had this technique, she would take them all!
Sadly though, this dream of her would never come to fruition because of the fact that the characters inside the manual were faded and entirely unreadable! Even if she squinted or put the book directly up to her face, she still couldn't read a single word of it. If Elder Zhong wasn't watching her right now, she'd burn the useless thing into ash! Hah... How great would it have been to have a skill like that?
She walked away and sat at one of the tables. Her whole goal for coming here was a bust. She'd have to wait until she's gained enough contribution points to look at the Sky-ranked manuals to get a useful auxiliary art.
Hey, what was that guy doing?
He was quickly flipping through all the incomplete earth-ranked techniques just like she was but when he landed on the support manual she gave up on, he smiled like a dirty creep. What the h.e.l.l was that about? He took the book to the counter and looked like he planned on taking it home to practice. But that was impossible, the instructions to practicing that technique were unreadable! Could he somehow read that faint ink? No way...
"You do know the issue with this martial art is right?" Elder Zhong asked him.
"Haha do not worry Elder! If I can't get anything out of it, I'll be sure to bring it back. I'm just going to try my luck to see if I can gain anything from such a technique."
He shrugged, "Your contribution points, not mine."
…..
Ying followed him all the way back to his home. She couldn't help that annoying feeling in the back of her head telling her that he had a way of practicing that technique. That slimy smile of his reeked of something suspicious. The way he was flipping back and forth through the manual just increased her suspicions against him. He should only be looking at faded characters but it looks like he's reading a complete martial text.
"Oi! Fang! We heard that a frog has been trying to taste the meat of a swan. We're here on the behalf of Gong Jun to beat you half to death!" Some weakling yelled.
"You've been acting too chummy with Princess Lan."
"We're sure to get in Gong Jun's good side by teaching you a lesson about messing with his woman."
"Hey hey hey! Who the h.e.l.l brought these barking mutts to my door? You think someone as handsome and as righteous as me would need to take another man's woman? Think again! Liu Lan has been my woman since I laid eyes on her. Anyone else trying to claim her for their own is just delusional."
"Has this brat gone insane?"
"This trash has definitely lost it. He's only at the 3rd stage and he thinks he can insult us?"
"We're at the 4th stage waste! Get ready for your beating."
"Let this daddy here teach you dumb dogs a lesson about barking in front of my house." He cracked his knuckles and brought forth two flames from his hands.
He manically laughed as he brought the two flames together and merged them into a deeper bigger flame. He shot the flame towards the three weaklings and burned them into a pile of charred bodies. He definitely has some sort of magic treasure that lets him read that technique. Ying knew she had to take it from him.
Ying appeared behind him with her sword dragging behind her back.
"How did you do that?"
He looked at her in shock before taking a glance at her sword then at her chest.
"I might be willing to tell you what you want if you spend a night with me in my house, beautiful elder martial sister."
This pervert has just signed his own tombstone. Ying kicked one of the barely alive bodies towards him as a distraction for her true attack. It flew with enough force to match an arrow shot from a master bowman. She leapt behind the body while watching the perv. His hands ignited in flames and he did a palm strike, smashing the body into the ground. His eyes bulged out as Ying appeared directly over him with her sword raised, ready to cleave him in half from above!
"YOU'RE FREAKING CRAZY!" His entire body erupted in a light blue flame.
Ying felt like her blood was freezing to a stop as she felt the temperature of that flame. That was a mystic flame! He was in possession of one of the mystic flames somehow! Now she has no choice but to take everything he has! She continued her swing downward. Her eyes focused in on him as he blasted away from her attack.
"Give me everything you have or die." She threatened.
"You're insane!" He rubbed his silver earring with his left hand.
A light gleamed in her eyes as she focused in on that earring. She vanished from her previous spot and s.n.a.t.c.hed the earrings and support manual from his body. Her hands were freezing at a slow rate but that was nothing her flames couldn't fix.
"What...? Impossible! How did you?!" Ying back fisted him in the forehead and knocked him unconscious, along with snuffing out his icy flames.
She put on the earring for herself and opened up the manual. The characters were slowly deepening in color and she could actually read what was on the text! How amazing! Imagine what other incomplete manuals she could read with this spirit tool! Maybe she could even find something suitable for Bing with this thing! Ying walked away with a new auxiliary technique under her belt and a free spirit tool that definitely had to be at or above earth-rank. How lucky was she that the person in possession of such a nice thing was pretty weak? Maybe next time she sees him, he'll have found another useful magical treasure for her to take. It was too bad she didn't know how to steal someone's mystic flame.
